Trainings and some other news

Sorry for not so many newst in last days, but I was very busy with some issues in my everyday life not connected with FCB, but I hope to post everything soon.

So let's start with very quick summay of 23rd and 24th of September in Barcelona's world.

The first team returned to training after defeating Sporting Gijón. The players gathered on pitch 1 at the Ciutat Esportiva at 11.00 am. Xavi and Puyol preferred to work on specific tasks in the gym, while the injured Messi was also absent. Abidal was also given special permission by the club to miss today’s session. The players that featured at the Camp Nou last night did their own specific work with a fitness specialist.

The other players trained as normal, with a big game away to Bilbo to come at 10.00 pm on Saturday. Guardiola also called upon six reserve players. Two of these, Nolito and Thiago, have been training with the first team for several days, and were joined today by colleagues Miño, Tello, Fontàs and Víctor Vázquez.

Photos:











After training session Gabi Milito met with media (click here to read more)
Fave quotes:
“We are a squad, a group, with very good players, if at any point in the season somebody is missing, we have someone else to take his place.”
“We’ll have to be prepared for a very serious match, because we’re up against a very good team. It’s one of the toughest grounds in Spanish football. We’ll have to play the same way we have done in other games recently, playing seriously and intensely, because we won’t be playing an easy team.”


Friday:
Lionel Messi's road to recovery took a step forward on Friday as he strolled onto the training pitch for the first time to work on his individual programme! That's what I call "news of the day". Take care Leo!
Let's celebrate with photos- all from morning session:)





BTW I love this last photo, our cute boys from Argentina, Leo, Gabi and Javier together:)

After trainig it was Pep's turn to hold press conference. Most of all he was talking about game against Athleico Bilbao, but also about Messi and team (click to read more)


Thiago Alcántara has been called up to the FC Barcelona squad for the game against Athletic Club de Bilbao on Saturday evening as Lionel Messi and Éric Abidal miss out. Congrats Thiago!

So our full squad for tomorrow is: Valdés, Pinto, Adriano, Maxwell, Alves, Piqué, Puyol, Milito, Xavi, Sergio Busquets, Iniesta, Mascherano, Jeffren, Bojan, Pedro, Villa, Keita, Thiago.

Abidal is back in BCN, as totalbarca.com reports "For forty five minutes on Friday afternoon (16:45 to 17.30) the French defender exercised alone, with the help of one of the team’s trainers to help him recover his match fitness. The player missed six days of training owing to the illness of his grandfather, who has since passed away. Abidal returned to Barcelona this afternoon."

Other news:
After the league match against Mallorca (October 8th), a number of Barcelona’s players will once again disperse for international duty: Alves and Adriano (Brazil), Milito&Mascherano&Messi (Argentina)

And just look at this front page of MD;

Funny part: Pique asked about all gosips about his personal life, including relationship with Shakira, answered ““My private life? I take all this very lightly. If I were to ignore the rumors, Zlatan would be very sad.” (you probably remeber HUGE rumours about Pique and Ibra after this photo was taken-click to see it), he also confessed that “It is much harder to be a model to play football.”

Pique showed off the design of watch and bracelet that will bare his name in a collection especially made for the Time Force brand.


Few days ago in Spanish media tere were newst about group on facebook "Si esto consigue 250.000 fans me retiro a los 40" which means "If it (group) gets 250,000 fans I will retire at 40" people who set it up claimed to be Puyi's friends and that Carles asked them to create such group, but Carles denied it and on his twitter informed that he has no idea what's it all about.

Club's corner:
Today we have an emotional ceremony, club awarded the golden insignia to members that have been loyal to the Club for 50 years. Congrats!
Sandro Rosell has presented gold club crest for the first time in his role as FC Barcelona president as he spent Friday with 189 members who were celebrating being associated with the Blaugrana for 50 years.




The festivities on the day of Mercé began at 10am when a service was held to commemorate 53 years since Camp Nou was inaugurated. President Sandro Rosell and vice president Jordi Cardoner represented the board in the event that was carried out in the Roma area along with around 200 members.

Saturday- training and preparations

The squad trained at the Ciutat Esportiva this morning in their final session before tomorrow night’s game against Atletico Madrid. Éric Abidal missed the session and will not travel to Madrid. The French defender was given permission by the club to miss training to deal with a personal matter and he joins the injured Jeffren as the only players to miss the trip to the Spanish capital tomorrow as Guardiola named all 17 of his available first team squad for the game and Thiago.

Photos from training:






Leo Messi was presented with a personalised number 10 Lakers shirt before training this morning, coinciding with the presence of the Campus Bàsquet Sense Fronteres at the Ciutat Esportiva.


After training as usual at day-before-game Pep met with press(details here- click)


Something very special today: Wedding at Camp Nou, well not exactly, just wedding photos. Couple from Poland Anna and Borys Słysz are huge Barça fans. Even their engagements took place in haltime of Barca-Sevilla game! They get married in Polish Consulate in Barcelona and than came to Camp Nou to took wedding pictures. According to club's website, Anna's favourite players are Messi and Iniesta and Borys' Puyol. Congratulations!




Andres Iniesta published new photo on his facebook:)

and added: "Today's last day of preparation for tomorrow's match at the Calderon. It is always a difficult game but I hope things will go well and we will win. Greetings!"

And two photos form Alejandro Sanz's concert in Barcelona


Where's Adriano? He was there too, I hope next time he will have photos with other Barça's boys too!

Barça B-Elche (2-0), yeah!


p.s. No matter if it's Barça or Barça B, they know how to celebrate for sure! Congrats boys, you're our future!

And just for fun: new campaign with Pep is everywhere, even around Santiago Bernabeu

Pep's words of wisdom and training

Hi there, Friday was qutie ordinary day in FCB world, there was training and than Pep met with media.

FC Barcelona's first-team squad trained on Friday morning as preparations continued unabated for the first league home game of the season against Hércules and 19 players took part. Jeffren Suárez was the only member of the first-team squad not to take part in the training as he followed his specific training programme in order to recover from the slight muscle tear that he has in his left leg.







Barça will take a break from the norm as they will no train on the day of the game and instead will meet at Camp Nou at 11 on Saturday where Pep Guardiola will talk tactics for 30 minutes with them. Afterwards the players will head to the NH Constanza and prepare for the game, which kicks off at 18.

Josep Guardiola was full of praise for Barça's opponents this weekend Hércules and believes that they must not be underestimated as newly promoted teams are often full of drive and enthusiasm. Looking at his own squad Guardiola said he was delighted. "If we continue in the same line that I seen recently then we will do well. I think the supporters will continue to enjoy coming to see us."

On few occasions Guardiola chooses to make his players spend time together before matches and he explained why. "I do not what them to be bored," he stated. "Hotels are boring and I would prefer them to be at home and have time with their friends and family so when they come here they will be refreshed. I trust them and they work well."

Pep also answered questions about Bojan and Zlatan. (you can read more here)

FC Barcelona have the most supporters of any club in Europe, study by Sport+Markt has revealed. The Blaugrana can claim to have an incredible 57.8 million fans, almost double that of their nearest rival. (anybody surprised?)

I can't wait to see our boys playing! I hope we will have great evenint together with our great team.

Our Barca

Yesterday I've read (and posted on this blog too) about family from Japan crazy about FCB. So I want to share some my photos. My family (or part of us:P) are cules too, right now we have Iniesta, Villa, Pique and Valdes pictures on our fridge.



I know that Iniesta looks strange with yellow face (and such haircut too!), but you must forgive 8-years-old cule who lost his 'peach' pencil:P I must confess that I colored Valdés, just couldn't resist:P We plan to have all squad (but it will take some time, because our 'artist' hate coloring:P the only way to convince him to use pencils is to print Barca's coloring pages, but not too often of course) but I think our frigde is too small for it so we have to change place of our display.


But we show our love to Barca also in different ways:

Here is a birthday cake for my brother


It was blaugrana also inside:P


Here are sweets that we prepared for Champions League final in Rome (lucky one:P)


Of course we celebrate every victory in blaugrana colors, with friends and good Cava;) There is always a lot of noise!

How about you? Please feel free to share your photos and memories!

Xavi & Iniesta conversation and Villa's support

I really HAVE to share it with you, this photo is from Sport's front page (5 Sept 2010), but it's not only cuuute photo, there is also brilliant converastion between Xavi and Iniesta, original you can find here (click), there are also some translations in English (here in comments section-click, another one here-click and here too-click ) I really recomend reading it! It's great way to know players and their point of view. My favourite part is:
X: Listen, I have heard from a little bird that there has been quite a chaos in reference to your swim suit. Is it true?

I: Have you seen the photos?

X: No

I: Well, I put one on, just like any other. And then apparently there were people who didn’t like it.

X: Why?

I: Ha! I don’t know. I thought it was a wonderful swim suit. But as we all know, everyone has their own tastes and colors.

and

I: Apart from that, I have already equaled my records from last season

X: How?

I: Of course, man. I have only scored one goal in the past season, and I have scored one this season already.

Big smile to Andres and Xavi:)





Here is another first page, this time it's Mundo Deportivo, as you can see David Villa holds his Barca jersey, but it's special one, it's for miners who are trapped in a mine in Chile. Original article can be found here-click, there is also English translation here-click.






And cute news from Japan! Okuzumi family in Tokyo have customised their house to make it a shrine to their favourite team – Barca! The house is known in the area as “Barca House” and even has a small Nou Camp to play football on. (read more here-click)





And some news from our club:
Barça B vs. Xerez (2-1) -congrats boys, especially Jonathan Soriano and Saúl Berjón who scored. Game took place at Miniestadi.